This week the prompt is

It’s All Downhill From Here

Wilbur Moron breathed out, sending the multiple rodents scattering as they inhaled the fetid miasma that was Wilbur’s exhalation. He waved the cab away and looked at the path ahead. He was going home. He knew it. All the signs were that his direction of travel was correct: fecally slick pavements – check; pollution-infused sewer runoffs – check; crumbling masonry – check; rotting carrion – check; total lack of any flora – check; disease-carrying mammalian life – check; and…

Wilbur blinked. He’d lifted his gaze, convinced he’d be faced with a sickly stinking sky but between him and the oily aspect fluttered a totally inapt string of flags. Pretty flags. Jolly flags. The word ‘bunting’ popped into his head, making him gag. It was the sort of happy go lucky feature more appropriate for twee village greens, maypoles and jubilee street parties. Not the gateway to Hell.

‘Lovely, aren’t they?’

‘What?’ Wilbur looked to his right.

A small wizened two eyed twinkly creature of indeterminate sex age and species looked up at him. ‘The flappy wavy thingies. Add a bit of colour, yes? Cheer things up, don’t you know?’

Wilbur tapped his phone. ‘Where are we?’

The phone yawned. ‘I thought we were done?’

‘I need to know where we are.’

‘Where we were when we got out of the cab. We’ve not moved, have we?’

‘No, but where is that?’

‘Exactly where we were. As I…’

‘What’s it called, this Road?’

The phone sighed dramatically. ‘Pavedwithgoodintentions.’

Wilbur nodded. He turned to the creature. ‘See, this isn’t right. You can’t go around destroying people’s despair. I’ve spent my life surrounded by positivity and glee and for once I had low hopes that this might be my route to utter misery. Drear and dismal, it said on Trip Advisor. And what do I find? Some warty faced do-gooder hanging out the flags. Making me ‘welcome’? Who in Hell’s name do you think you are?’

‘I was born a troblin.’

‘A what?’

‘My dad was an itinerant goblin who did the summer fetes, hiding in the tunnels of fear and scaring the bejeebers out of youngsters until a group of parents complained about how long it was taking getting the bejeebers back inside the bunch of ingrates. My mum was a troll who worked part time at the Department of Transport on Bridge management. Too many people ignore diversions where bridges are concerned because they tend to be on the long side. If it got too bad, the DoT stationed a troll. Very effective before Health and Safety dictated that hanging miscreants over the parapet by their ankles was too dangerous.’

‘Did your mum drop them?’

‘Oh no, they didn’t care about the motorists; it was when one workman was hit by some falling small change and cut his ear that it had to stop.’

‘How on earth did your parents get together?’

‘There this dating app for mystical elementals with a tendency to be right bastards. You swipe the first one that pisses you off and if you draw blood, you’re a match.’

‘Seriously?’

‘No, I’m just trying to lighten the mood. Look Wilbur, mate. You want to go to Hell, right?’

Wilbur nodded.

‘And you are, of course completely within your rights as an Utter Moron to do that. It just that some of us, who’ve survived a family where the idea of fun is playing the foundation game – you throw yourself into concrete and the winner is the one who sets last – we really want to help others avoid the same fate.’

Wilbur pondered this. ‘I used to be happy. Once.’

‘Never.’

‘No, true. I was always high on the miserable spectrum. It’s just got at lot worse since I got this smart-arse phone. It won’t stop telling me what to do, where to go. I thought, it’s making my life Hell so why not? I told it to take me to Hell and this is where I ended up.’

‘On the road to Hell.’

‘So I thought. Then I met you. All happy smiles, tales of redemption, turning your life around, dedicating yourself to the happiness of others.’

‘And that’s made you change your mind?’

Wilbur dropped the phone into the wizened old optimist’s lap. He began to run, down the Road, towards the Maws (just past the whirlpool of degradation, after the chippy). ‘Not me!’

The troblin watched him go. Another satisfied customer, he thought He looked at the phone. The phone looked at him.

‘Hello, phone. Want to be happy?’

‘Oh not you as well,’ sighed the phone.